Rockstar likes to skirt controversy with its Grand Theft Auto series. Although that controversy can sometimes bite them on the posterior — Hot Coffee anoyone? — for the most part, sales of the Grand Theft Auto games tend to be helped along by all of the free publicity handed the titles by outraged moral crusaders like Jack Thompson.

One wonders, though, if Rockstar and Take-Two might be taking things a little too far in the next Grand Theft Auto game. According to a casting call currently open for publisher Take-Two, Rockstar is currently looking for somebody to play the role of James Pedeaston in a new game, presumably the next in the Grand Theft Auto series.

So what, I hear you ask? Well, James Pedeaston was a radio show host in Grand Theft Auto IV who, in that game, was wanted for child molestation in Malaysia, and was under investigation by the FBI. In the current casting call, Pedeaston is described as a “man-boy love activist who just got released from an Indonesian prison.”

In other words, it seems like Rockstar is looking to go further with one of their more tasteless jokes in Grand Theft Auto IV. In the first game, the Pedeaston references were easy to miss, since his story was told in the rarely listened to talk radio stations, but in the new game, it looks like they want to flesh Pedeaston out into an on-screen side character.

Rockstar’s tastelessness is more subversive than endorsement, so I have no doubt that the Pedeaston character will be handled with full acknowledgement of how loathsome the character is supposed to be. That said, it seems like child rape is just one of those things you don’t want to laugh about too much in a modern video game, don’t you think?